Unholy Death Knight - Necromancer (Conceptual Adjustments)

[Ruunicus]

I. PREFACE

I figured I'd take my Unholy Death Knight / Necromancer concept a bit further. I hope you all don't mind that I start a new thread to showcase my thoughts.

Sooooo... here's my take on how Unholy could theoretically move forward with having the OPTION to have a Necromancer-ish (ranged) playstyle if one chooses to do so.



II. UNHOLY CHANGES

• Each Festering Wound increases the Unholy Death Knight's damage to the target by 1% (stacking and capping alongside Festering Wounds). This would add a cycling of damage that would actually give us a small and very much needed damage boost.
• Summon Gargoyle is baseline for Unholy.
• Necrotic Strike is baseline for Unholy (this is already a near mandatory choice for us so it being baseline will actually give Unholy some choice in PvP Talents - see section 5 below).
• Staves can be equipped / used (and thus transmogrified) but would be virtually useless for a non-Necromancer build (see Necromancer's Phylactery below.)
• All Will Serve is changed to being the same as the Item - Death Knight T15 DPS 2P Bonus but it would instead be a Ghoul for 15 sec and not a Fallen Zandalari.
• Raise Dead is changed to allow you to raise a specific undead minion i.e. Ghoul (ST DPS), Sludge Belcher (AOE DPS), Risen Skulker (Ranged DPS - I would expect slightly less damage than the Ghoul but maybe with a slow effect?). The minions damage, etc. would be adjusted so that they they are the best choice for their role.
• Necromancer's Bargain (PVP) is changed so that Crypt Fever does up to 24% based on how many (4) Festering Wounds are burst (6% per Wound). Please note how this ability works - it does 2% damage for each second of the 4 second duration.

III. RUNEFORGING

Runeforging should definitely be expanded upon. I propose that the current runes become the base for all runeforging and then adding an interesting and different effect to it. In this way we could essentially have multiple options of Rune of the Fallen Crusader and Rune of Razorice, etc. These base runes would somehow NOT stack (in regards to DW).

Here's an example...

• Rune of the Fallen Crusader - Rune of the Fallen Crusader and a lite version of Shadowmourne's "Your attacks have a chance to drain a Soul Fragment granting you 0.5% Strength. When you have acquired 10 Soul Fragments you will unleash Chaos Bane, dealing Shadow damage split between all enemies within 15 yards and granting you 10% Strength for 5 sec."
• Rune of Cinderglacier - Rune of the Fallen Crusader which also procs the old Rune of Cinderglacier (increase the damage of your next 2 spells that deal Frost or Shadow damage by 20%. Lasts 15 sec.)
• Rune of Razorice - Rune of Razorice which also increases your movement speed by the same stacking 3% (stacking up to 5 times).

IV. NECROMANCER TALENTS & ABILITIES


Necromancer's Phylactery - Replaces Summon Gargoyle talent (Level 100 Unholy Death Knight ability)
Instant (1.5 min cooldown)
Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, and Death Strike are replaced with Death Chill, Blighted Frost, and Death Touch (so that all melee abilities become ranged attacks with a 30 yd range... Apocalypse and Soul Reaper, if selected, are also converted to a 30 yrd range). All Physical damage abilities are converted to Frost damage (see abilities below). All Intellect (stat) converts to Attack Power the same way Strength does (and continues to do so.)

NOTE: Mastery: Dreadblade remains unchanged. This stops these Necromancer changes from scaling a tad too much and also keeps things like Clawing Shadows, etc. as a viable choice.


Death Chill - Replaces Scourge Strike
1 Rune / Instant / 30 yrd range
A deathly blast of unholy power that deals [ 30% of Attack Power ] Frost damage and [ 16.5% of Attack Power ] Shadow damage, and causes 1 Festering Wound to burst.


Blighted Frost - Replaces Festering Strike
2 Runes / Instant / 30 yrd range
Unleash a frozen attack for [ 101.09% of Attack Power ] Frost damage and infects the target with 2-3 Festering Wounds.


Death Touch - Replaces Death Strike
45 Runic Power / Instant / 30 yrd range
Focuses dark power into a chilling attack that deals [ 46.43% of Attack Power ] Frost damage and heals you for 25% of all damage taken in the last 5 sec, minimum 7% of maximum health.



Raise Dead and Dark Transformation would maybe receive a cosmetic change to the models themselves (and thus maybe themed after the updated Skeleton models and the different "empowered" Skeleton model with a shadow effect just for variety. This would include a new icon and a minor change to the Claw tool tip to replace the word "deformed" to whatever is fitting i.e. "unholy" or something). These could also all be glyphs I guess...



V. PVP TALENTS


Exhume Magic - NEW PvP Talent (available to ALL Death Knight specs)
1 Rune / 45 second cooldown / 30 yrd range
Instantly remove one helpful Magic effect from the target and gain 10 Runic Power.

* I "borrowed" the icons from Heroes of the Storm (Kel'Thuzad, etc.)

[AlmightyGerkin]

Like the idea a lot. Be nice to see unholy have more necromancer to it but unfortunately unholy is the spec blizzard toys with and won't get it right and when they do its too late.

[Kaleredar]

While it's an interesting idea, Blizzard doesn't even want to balance 1h vs 2h frost; I doubt they'd take on an entire ranged simultaneous rework of a spec.


Though it is nice to see people acknowledging that, yes, DKs are necromancers.

[Deleted]

no thanks, well thought out but ranged classes are exceptionally boring and having to either tank or play frost is something I'd rather not do as my favourite class

[Ruunicus]

no thanks, well thought out but ranged classes are exceptionally boring and having to either tank or play frost is something I'd rather not do as my favourite class

I fully understand. The changes/concept I did above would support current Unholy (melee) as well as a Necromancer build. You wouldn't lose your favourite class BUT I do get that this is not everyone's cup of tea

[Yvaelle]

Ya every few months I make another pitch on the Blizzard forums to have 4th specs to each class, and everytime I mention I want DK's to have a Necromancer ranged DPS spec.

Personally I wouldn't replace Unholy, I think it should remain, but every class at this point should get a 4th spec - and Necro is the obvious choice for DKs.

This is a really nice proposal for what that might actually look like, if I ever run the WoW class design team I will be back to steal your ideas

[EbonBehelit-]

It's always nice to see more Necromancy-focused DK concepts. I've been tinkering around with one of my own, which I may even post one day if I feel any confidence in it.

Alas, we may never get to play proper necromancers in WoW. On the other hand, Dark Ranger is very possible for the next expansion - and it may well have a necro spec.

[Casterbridge]

While I doubt it would ever happen, I won't lie I love the concept.

[Sarrgoth]

I like it. Only thing I have to say is that I want unholy to move away from the wound bursting, it works, but it isn’t very engaging imo.

Also, Liches are the creatures that possess phylacteries. (Sorry for knitpicking lol)

[Dreyk25]

Nice! Hope Blizz will consider the concept.

[Ruunicus]

Updated. Just a few extra tidbits to round out the Unholy spec as well as the Necromancer option.

[Malikath]

get rid of the retarded festering CPoints and bring back festerblight and it might be fun.
as is it's just another crap clone of monk that most melee have become.

[Ruunicus]

get rid of the retarded festering CPoints and bring back festerblight and it might be fun.
as is it's just another crap clone of monk that most melee have become.

I agree. I'm not big on the Combo Points design.

I only utilized what we already have to create the above concept. I didn't want to get into changing Blizzard's current base mechanic (although I would much prefer the change so that diseases are added damage that increase the damage of our attacks - like it was waaaaaaaaaaay back when...)

[Th3Scourge]

I'd love if they implemented an 'ascendancy' class system similar to Path of Exile or Neverwinter Nights. Interestingly, this was the original concept for the Death Knight class, which was meant to be a 'fallen Paladin'. Such a shame they didn't go with that option but I understand why they didn't and the execution for DKs were great either way. I'm sure we all remember the assault on Light's Hope way back in 2008

[MandaRi]

To be honest I'm not sure if this will work out good

[BlackBoss]

Was with you until I saw "festering wounds".

[matrix123mko]

Would play.

[Ruunicus]

I just added some final adjustments to Unholy's base model (not just the Necromancer option).

[Lodravel]

Neat idea! You obviously thought about it a lot and the pictures are a really nice touch.

If we consider Blizz' track record though, even as cool as this is, it will never see the light of day. And understandably so! For the simple reason that you'd make the spec ranged, it would either be mandatory for raiding or have to be underpowered.

Unless one of the next expansions has us pit against the undead again and they consequently release the necromancer class, I don't see us ever living out that fantasy. Any more than we can now, that is.

[Ruunicus]

Neat idea! You obviously thought about it a lot and the pictures are a really nice touch.

If we consider Blizz' track record though, even as cool as this is, it will never see the light of day. And understandably so! For the simple reason that you'd make the spec ranged, it would either be mandatory for raiding or have to be underpowered.

Unless one of the next expansions has us pit against the undead again and they consequently release the necromancer class, I don't see us ever living out that fantasy. Any more than we can now, that is.

I understand and I hate that I kinda' agree with you.

The one BIG factor that I can't truly figure out yet is the white damage. It's a big part of DKs and an optional talented ranged spec for Unholy may fall waaaaaay behind due to this.

Overall, the above changes would boost melee Unholy and, IMO, make the spec even more fun (non-Necromancer's Phylactery option)... but... why would anybody choose the Necromancer's Phylactery talent if it's behind by so much? I just need to further brainstorm white damage alternatives to get it "close enough". Currently I'm thinking that the talent would also give a moderate boost to shadow damage... maybe. I would hope that we could accept it being a viable optional playstyle for Unholy but maybe not World First viable.